'Unconstitutional exercise': A federal judge in Texas just struck down President...

Nearly three months after President Joe Biden announced his student loan forgiveness plan, a federal judge in Texas has ruled it “an unconstitutional exercise of Congress’s legislative power” and that it must be vacated.

The decision marks a victory for conservative advocacy groups that have been challenging the president’s ability to cancel debt without the support of Congress. The program had already been temporarily blocked by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis after a request from six Republican-led states to enjoin it when their own suit was dismissed.

In a 26-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman called the program “one of the largest exercises of legislative power without congressional authority in the history of the United States.”

The Job Creators Network — the group backing the two plaintiffs in the case who were either partially or completely ineligible for Biden’s loan forgiveness plan and argued it didn’t follow proper legal processes — tweeted its response: “We KNEW that the #Biden Administration’s #StudentLoanForgiveness program was illegal. We took them to court and the judge agreed — declaring the program illegal and vacating it. Now, let’s work on real solutions to the student loan crisis.”

While the Biden administration immediately appealed the decision, for the 26 million Americans who’ve already applied for student loan forgiveness, it’s a major setback to seeing their debt cleared.

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Forgiveness had been a long time coming

Biden announced his plan for the Department of Education to forgive up to $20,000 in student loans for those who qualified for Pell Grants and $10,000 for all other borrowers earning less than $125,000 back in August. Pell Grants are given to students who are considered to have exceptional financial need.